Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.

There is nothing by which men display their character so much as in what they consider ridiculous... Fools and sensible men are equally innocuous. It is in the half fools and the half wise that the great danger lies.

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose.

Every solution of a problem is a new problem.

All lyrical work must, as a whole, be perfectly intelligible, but in some particulars a little unintelligible.

Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.